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Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.

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[-] neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 224 points 1 month ago

Linux has become good enough to replace desktop operating systems.

Now, we are back at square one. I’ll be the first to inaccurately declare, “This will be the year of the Linux phone.”

[-] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 73 points 1 month ago

All I need is a good enough emulation of android apps to fool them (eg for banking).

[-] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Sailfish OS has it.

Unfortunately the project has some closed source bits which, imho, aren't an issue when you look closer (some parts of the UI). Maybe I'm naive but I trust this EU company.

I use it as my daily driver. It certainly is frugal compared to recent Android versions, but fully functional.

It's an actual Linux OS (as opposed to any Android version). Things work the same way they do on my laptop & server.

[-] Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee 14 points 1 month ago

I used Maemo on my N900 <3.

I don't wanna use Sailfish bcs of the phone support tho, I'm shallow af & I need my hardware :(.
(I also have a few other Sailfish issues, the source code/availability/package, the licencing - but I feel like all of those could/would change with some growth.)

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[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 month ago

Can you get by with web access? That's what I do and it's fine.

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[-] Sunflier@lemmy.world 204 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Dear tech bros,

We, the people, don't want to use your AI shit. Please stop shoving it down our throats. Thank you.

Sincerely,

-The people

[-] Tiger666@lemmy.ca 72 points 1 month ago

Hahahahhshahahahhahahahhahahahahahahahaha.

Sincerely,

Tech bros.

Is it really the people or just a subset of people that use Lemmy, the vast majority of people seemingly don’t care as is evidenced by the sheer number of people using things like social media.

What might be important to use in this echo chamber isn’t reflective of society on the whole.

[-] SupraMario@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago

It's mainly tech savy people who don't use it. Tons of people in companies use this shit. The number of people who use "ai" to take auto notes in meetings is insane. It's a massive security risk but they do it anyways thinking it won't be stored.

[-] Tja@programming.dev 15 points 1 month ago

It's mostly lemmy. In real life people go from amused to indifferent. I have never met anyone as hostile as the lemmy consensus seems to be. If a feature is useful people will use it, be it AI or not AI. Some AI features are gimmicks and they largely get ignored, unless very intrusive (in which case the intrusivity, not the AI, is the problem).

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 11 points 1 month ago

If a feature is useful people will use it, be it AI or not AI.

People will also use it if it's not useful, if it's the default.

A friend of mine did a search the other day to find the hour of something, and google's AI lied to her. Top of the page, just completely wrong.

Luckily I said, "That doesn't sound right" and checked the official site, where we found the truth.

Google is definitely forcing this out, even when it's inferior to other products. Hell, it's inferior to their own, existing product.

But people will keep using AI, because it's there, and it's right most of the time.

Google sucks. They should be broken up, and their leadership barred from working in tech. We could have had a better future. Instead we have this hallucinatory hellhole.

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[-] baguettefish@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

yes but what if a company has the ability to create billions of close friends who can recommend sponsored products to you? why would it care about whether you want that or not?

also bard was a way better name for google's LLM. it has its origins in an isaac asimov story about a robot who is programmed to tell random stories.

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[-] commander@lemmy.world 72 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I swear all of this was predicted to happen by open source advocates of the 80s and they'd be called alarmists/whatever and then 30 years later you had Snowden leaks and all the surveillance bills and now Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all advertisement companies mining data through the software and devices they sell

The best people can do is just keep using and advocating for Linux adoption. Try out degoogled Android or a more traditional Linux phone device. Need more users and funding to get the software kinks worked out. They're not as good as the high end Android and Apple stuff, but it's a process

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[-] besselj@lemmy.ca 67 points 1 month ago
[-] Akip@discuss.tchncs.de 37 points 1 month ago
[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 39 points 1 month ago

X is blocked on network level here, could you please copy&paste?

[-] Matty_r@programming.dev 51 points 1 month ago

GrapheneOS @GrapheneOS We're going to be moving forward under the expectation that future Pixel devices may not meet the requirements to run GrapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices ) and may not support using another OS. We've been in talks with a couple OEMs about making devices and what it would cost. 1:02 AM · Jun 13, 2025

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago
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[-] besselj@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 month ago

Long enough for GOS to port Android 16 or get their own OEM, I hope

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[-] r00ty@kbin.life 64 points 1 month ago

Pretty sure I disabled Gemini as one of the first things I did when I got my phone. But, yes when I read that, to me it did seem like a serious overreach for something that was going to be "on by default" for most users.

[-] BassTurd@lemmy.world 53 points 1 month ago

I've been Android and Windows user for pretty much all of my life. Vehemently anti Apple because of the company and I've thought the products are trash. I've been 100% Linux for over a year and a half, and if this Gemini stuff comes through, I will not have an android phone either. I have a Pixel and my old still functional Pixel. I need to try installing grapheneOS or something else and trial it to see if it will work for me.

If Linux isn't an option for me in the future for whatever reason, I will be purchasing a Mac. I will never have a Windows machine for the rest of my life if I have any say in the matter, work being the obvious and uncontrollable exception. The fact that I'm even entertaining the idea of owning an iPhone or a Mac is really telling about how far Android and Windows and enshitified.

[-] wpb@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago

The user experience of GrapheneOS is basically the same as vanilla Android, except that you have more control (you can uninstall google apps, for example), but at the cost of a small minority of apps (banking ones, for example) not working (out of the box, sometimes at all). My banking app works, and a quick google search will tell you if yours does too. If your old pixel is not too old (4 is no longer supported, 8 definitely is, not sure abt in between), you should give it a go. I think you'll see it's not as big of a step as you maybe currently imagine.

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[-] pxlkttn 12 points 1 month ago

I've been using GrapheneOS for a couple months after having tested it on an older phone for a while. I'm really loving the level of control I have over what I give apps access to. If you have a spare Pixel to test on I definitely recommend it! I've been getting away from all Google stuff and finding free open source and self-hosted alternatives. I'm running in the opposite direction of all the AI and data-farming.

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[-] higgsboson@dubvee.org 51 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I agree it would be concerning if I allowed Gemini access to my phone. Fuck that. This shit is exactly why I am on GrapheneOS.

[-] rumba@piefed.zip 47 points 1 month ago

I guess my next phone is going to run NixOS.

[-] TingoTenga@lemmy.world 41 points 1 month ago

Pls break Google up. Kthx

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 41 points 1 month ago

"We spent a lot of money on this, so you're going to have it."

[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 36 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Saying "You're not alone" is supposed to be a wholesome thing to show someone that you care. Instead, it's AI companies squeezing as much data out of customers and injecting as much AI into everything they can.

Society really took a wrong turn didn't it?

[-] Binturong@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 month ago

No, Google is using their influence and our reliance to steer society. Please don't forget how passive language enables the worst abusers.

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[-] Adderbox76@lemmy.ca 35 points 1 month ago

In the absence of being able to switch to Graphene (Don't own a pixel), I've done everything I can to replace Google Apps with FOSS alternatives, and disabled Google Assistant on my device entirely.

I know none of that will stop a determined Google eventually fucking with me, but at least I'm trying.

I'm so damned tired of the modern corporate world.

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[-] Krudler@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago

Remember when Google+ was the future?

[-] bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 month ago

I wish it had been. Circles were so much better than FB groups etc

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[-] TheFriar@lemm.ee 32 points 1 month ago

“Google is making it easier for Google to pry into your personal data.”

“Water is making it easier for water to make you wet.”

[-] fannymcslap@lemmy.world 30 points 1 month ago
[-] ranovich@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 month ago

Laughs in degoogled android

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[-] MudMan@fedia.io 28 points 1 month ago

So there's an opt-out.

The article seems concerned that the email announcing this doesn't include a specific path to the opt-out right in the email (which is a weird concern, considering the email provides two links to... presumably that information)?

I'm not sure what this means, either, but it seems the "whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off" line is saying that you can still have Gemini send texts for you even if you disable Google storing your apps usage server-side? I don't use Gemini as an assistant, so I'm not sure, but looking at the Gemini settings menu on my Android phone that's what it seems to map to.

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[-] TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

IMO, when Google lost most public support, it really started going downhill because the people who wanted to profit the business as much as possible became more determinant than those that were still trying to throttle the company due to ethical considerations. When a company gets criticized for everything it does, its decline increases significantly. Add to that it exists under the US government and how that has completely fallen to corruption.

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[-] RejZoR@lemmy.ml 22 points 1 month ago

I've not received any mails or notifications. Though I don't use Gemini at all. Or Google Assistant. Or any assistant.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 month ago

I don't use them either, but still got the email.

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[-] HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world 20 points 1 month ago

I don't have Gemini loaded to my phone and I have Google assistant voice command disabled

But a few days ago I was having a conversation with my son next to me on the couch with my phone sitting on the arm of the couch.

When I asked him a question, gemini answered with a prompt on the screen I have never seen before and haven't since.

It still creeps me out

I looked up what the prompt for gemini is supposed to lol like and this looked nothing like that. It looked more like a popup dialogue box from a browser but the only browser I use is opera and it is set as default

[-] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

Yeah a couple of weeks ago Google secretly activated Gemini on every Pixel user's phone. I ran into the same problem, my phone suddenly activated and Gemini popped up interrupting a song that I was playing while I was away from my phone. Ended up screwing up the song and having it repeat over and over and over.

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[-] EarlGrey@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 month ago

Apple has been seriously underperforming on their AI strategy.

Really makes it easy to keep using their devices.

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[-] classic@fedia.io 15 points 1 month ago

So is Gemini on there as an app? It isn't listed as such on my phone

[-] mrodri89@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 month ago

Well I guess I’m glad I moved over to apple. But I guess the enshitification of all our phones is coming soon.

[-] bytesonbike@discuss.online 16 points 1 month ago

Yeah only reason Apple hasn't done it is because they haven't figured out a way to connect it all to its ecosystem.

Like they say, the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

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this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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